


Spoonful of Midnight

by veridium_bye



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Darkspawn, Dinner, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Mage Rights, Olivandra, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 23:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridium_bye/pseuds/veridium_bye
Summary: Olivia has found an excuse to visit a friend of hers where she knows she always is in the unholy hours of the night. Seeker Pentaghast, always elbow-deep in responsibility and brooding, receives a pleasant surprise in the form of a warm meal and conversation. The two learn a bit more about what makes the other tick, and Cassandra can't help but want to get to the bottom of Olivia's perspective.





	Spoonful of Midnight

Managing to keep the felt and cotton blanket around her shoulders as she made her way up the stairs in the Smith’s shop, she felt the wood cricking and cracking under her bare feet, ruining any sense of surprise. Olivia had a habit of leaving shoes behind, and her friends had admonished her for it in the past – what about broken glass? Splinters? Rough rocks? – but she preferred it to be this way. She liked feeling a little wild at Skyhold: having to wear shoes, corsets, smallclothes, gowns, and other embellishments did grow old in Montsimmard.

The last stretch of stairs, and she was finally able to see the person she was looking for, hunched over the table with the Seeker’s tome open. Cassandra had been studying it almost every night before bed since her and the Inquisitor tracked down Seeker Lucius in Caer Oswin. It haunted her dreams, the few ones she had.

Olivia stopped when she arrived at the top of the stairs, holding two clay bowls with wooden spoons in them, her palms warmed by their touch. She grinned politely, clearing her throat so as to bring attention to her arrival.

Cassandra flinched slightly, looking up and seeing Olivia’s dancer’s frame illuminated by the resonating firelight from below. Her honey-flaxen hair glowing around her face like a halo in a painting, a few strands loose and frizzy, but in an endearing way. Her eyes widened as she saw what she had brought with her.

“Lady Olivia?” she said, closing the Tome now and rising from her chair. “What brings you all the way over here?”

“I notice your candlelight through your window from my sleeping quarters across the way. You sure like to burn a lot of wax, Seeker. I thought that perhaps you would grow hungry, since you skip supper in the Hall so often,” she smiled generously. Cassandra had never known someone who smiled so much, and with so little motivation to do so. It was as if Olivia’s modus operandi was to smile when all else failed, in any situation, regardless of preceding events.

“I…did not know it was so obvious,” Cassandra admitted as Olivia walked closer. Watching her set down both bowls, one across from the other. She wiped her hands lightly on her dress skirts, turning back to look up at the Seeker.

She shrugged. “Everything is obvious if one knows where to look. Sit, sit!” she chimed softly, running her fingers through the edges of hair around her face, pinning them back behind her ears before she herself sat down.

Cassandra couldn’t help but grin, the kindness of the moment moving her. She did as she was told, her warrior’s posture hunching austerely over her edge of the table, one arm encircling the bowl in front of her while the other reached for the spoon. Her figure was a comic contrast to Olivia’s sophisticated, and tall posture, her hands coupled in her lap as she watched her companion taste her cooking.

“What is in this? It is unlike anything I’ve had before,” Cassandra said as she swallowed a mouthful of soup. She felt slightly self-conscious, talking with her mouth full in front of such a woman. It reminded her of being watched and criticized during her youth for not being ladylike or graceful enough. But, where she half-expected judgment, she was greeted with a warm and tolerant expression.

“It is my famous freckleweed and berry soup. I used to practice it in the Circle kitchen. It’s good for hair, teeth, and bones,” she said gleefully, reaching for her own spoon now and taking a sip.

“What exactly is freckleweed?” Cassandra’s brow furrowed.

“You know that fungus-looking plant on the side of some pine trees? The kind that looks like snot?” her nose crinkled when she mentioned the grotesque imagery.

“Yes. Well, no, not really…”

 

“It’s that. It is actually quite sweet to taste, which is why you’re supposed to add a generous helping of salt and spice.”

“I see. How do you turn a plant that appears to be mucus into something edible and appealing to the eye?”

“Hard work, and a lot of heat,” she smiled, gesturing her open palm up in front of her. Suddenly, a spark of flame popped off of her skin, as a flash of light that disappeared as quickly as it was conjured. Cassandra’s eyes were not unused to such boastful Mage habits. Her traveling companions with magical abilities, after all, were not known for modesty. Still, it surprised her to see Olivia, who had been so coy about her powers, flaunt it so casually.

“How was your day, Seeker?” Olivia tilted in her posture to one side, her shoulders rounded sweetly as she took another spoonful.

“It was occupied and purposeful, I suppose. Training in the morning, reports from Leliana concerning our upcoming expedition to the Exalted Plains.” Cassandra let her spoon rest in her bowl for a minute as she rolled her shoulders. She had not yet taken the time to get out of her day armor, and even though she felt the most comfortable in it, the fatigue in her muscles was unavoidable.

Olivia’s eyes honed in on her mannerisms, but did not question it.

“Are you nervous, then?” she asked further, referring to the upcoming journey.

“No, never. Simply concerned as to what we will uncover. It has hardly been a predictable time here, as you can imagine,” Cassandra reached and took another bite, finding that the initial surprise of how good this soup was had given way to consistent enjoyment. It was an objectively delicious meal.

“Interesting. Theia has me patenting powders and elixirs for fending off darkspawn, as if such a thing just happened to exist already. If it did, I’d imagine Grey Wardens would not have such a difficult time of things,” Olivia rolled her eyes with affection for her most ambitious friend, who seemed to think Olivia was capable of doing impossible things with great ease.

“Are you struggling with such a project?” Cassandra’s chin tilted, curious now as to what Olivia was up to. This woman was an anomaly, and she was quiet for someone who seemed to be tasked with such hefty duties. She hardly saw her out and about during the day, she spent hours and hours in the Mage’s study tower, working herself to the bone. But when she did turn up, she always looked so lighthearted, like she had just gone for a walk in some meadow somewhere.

“I…am wondering if such things are possible. Darkspawn do not have senses as you and I do, at least, that is what books say. How can I fend off something which is not insulted by smells, tastes, or sounds?”

“Perhaps the goal should not be to deter them, but to sunder them.”

“Yes, but we have been doing that for ages. It is time for something new, something more implicitly powerful.”

“What can be more powerful than direct and effective attack?” Cassandra held her spoonful of soup on one side of her mouth as she continued to practice top-tier eating manners.

Olivia’s brow furrowed, and she placed her spoon down. Sitting back in her chair, she pursed her lips, deep in thought.

“I suppose such things make sense at the surface. Veronica would agree with you, I’m sure. She thinks I’m packaging and dispursing Mage abilities like a toy, anyway,” she grumbled with soreness, a hand going through her hair and lightly rubbing her scalp.

“How can one even think to accomplish that? Mage’s abilities are innate, you cannot possibly empower someone the same way by equipping them with weapons or tools. At least not fully. It would be like a Seeker trying to make someone immune to corruption by simply giving them a tonic to absolve them of years of training.”

“Yes, but Seekers are respected. Mages are exploited. We are utilized for our talents and shoved behind the curtain on the stage of History. Especially if you are an apostate, or an elf with abilities.”

“I still do not see the harm in producing capable weaponry for a war that demands such.”

Olivia shrugged, the most casual thing she did all night besides show up with no footwear. “I am simply doing what I believe to be right, and such assertions are always debatable.”

Cassandra’s felt her mentality converge with Olivia’s in that moment – a rarity, to be sure – but something about Olivia’s tone struck a nerve with her. She, too, knew how complicated and troubling it could be to not truly understand the brevity of one’s actions, even if their intentions were good. The adjective “good” was more temperamental than it seemed.

“Perhaps I should rethink my approach,” Olivia took her spoon and held in in the air, fiddling with it. Her eyes fixated on the corner of the room as she thought. “I can always challenge claims about Darkspawn sensitivities, especially when they are in open air. Perhaps there are resonating involuntary weaknesses derived from bodily limits. A visceral reaction, even in the most carnal of creatures.”

Cassandra watched her, her mind at work. Olivia surely didn’t know just what she looked like or what her face did when she jumped down her mental rabbit’s hole. The way her nose crinkled, the way one brow raised, the way she sucked on the side of her cheek. It was clever, and beautiful.

“I am sure you can find a loophole in such theories. I would be anxious to be on the receiving end of your debate skills,” Cassandra grinned broadly.

Olivia’s eyes touched back down to the present moment, and she giggled. “I am not as scary as some of my friends are, I’m afraid I’m the one who compromises when she should push for more.”

“That is not the impression I have gathered from you, Lady Olivia, and I reckon even you disbelieve such an opinion, deep down.”

Olivia was quiet in her eye contact with Cassandra, and for a moment they exchanged an endearing and warm stare. As she saw a hint of her own reflection in Cassandra’s richly-colored irises, she smiled, but it wasn’t one of those smiles she gave off for free. It was sincere, and deep, and subconscious.

“You are good at your job, Seeker,” she held up her empty spoon in the air, waving it a couple of times towards her eating companion, “am I to keep any insights out of your reach?”

“Certainly not,” Cassandra quipped, “not the truth, nor this recipe, for that matter.”


End file.
